Thursday, June 07, 2007

Much has been written about TB man, here, in commercial print and certainly the blogosphere. Some have been sympathetic with his plight while others want to keelhaul him.

I probably lean more toward those who want him keelhauled.

There are two things about this story that strike me as incredible. One is the arrogance of this man. The other is the ineptness of the governmental bodies to do what the taxpayers pay them to do.

"I didn't go running off or hide from people. It's a complete fallacy, it's a lie," Andrew Speaker told a Senate subcommittee by telephone from the Denver hospital where he remains in government-ordered isolation with an exceptionally dangerous form of TB

I didn't run off or hide.

Oh?

But U.S. doctors painted a picture of a man on the run from the start, revealing that Speaker left for his wedding two days earlier than planned — and saying they were blocked by Georgia law from stopping him and thus preventing what turned into an international health scare

Someone who leaves two days earlier than what was revealed to the CDC isn't running?

Right . . .

And then we have the government SNAFU.

Then when Speaker turned up in Rome, the government hesitated to ask Italian authorities to quarantine him in favor of offering him a second chance to cooperate. Instead, Speaker fled, slipping back across a U.S. border that was supposed to be closed to him when a border agent disregarded instructions and waved him through.

Let's see.

His passport is flagged. Border guards are given strict instructions to detain him and not let him enter the country. So what happens?

Much has been written about TB man, here, in commercial print and certainly the blogosphere. Some have been sympathetic with his plight while others want to keelhaul him.

I probably lean more toward those who want him keelhauled.

There are two things about this story that strike me as incredible. One is the arrogance of this man. The other is the ineptness of the governmental bodies to do what the taxpayers pay them to do.

"I didn't go running off or hide from people. It's a complete fallacy, it's a lie," Andrew Speaker told a Senate subcommittee by telephone from the Denver hospital where he remains in government-ordered isolation with an exceptionally dangerous form of TB

I didn't run off or hide.

Oh?

But U.S. doctors painted a picture of a man on the run from the start, revealing that Speaker left for his wedding two days earlier than planned — and saying they were blocked by Georgia law from stopping him and thus preventing what turned into an international health scare

Someone who leaves two days earlier than what was revealed to the CDC isn't running?

Right . . .

And then we have the government SNAFU.

Then when Speaker turned up in Rome, the government hesitated to ask Italian authorities to quarantine him in favor of offering him a second chance to cooperate. Instead, Speaker fled, slipping back across a U.S. border that was supposed to be closed to him when a border agent disregarded instructions and waved him through.

Let's see.

His passport is flagged. Border guards are given strict instructions to detain him and not let him enter the country. So what happens?